


stranger (sibling)

by sporeshroom



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27308209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sporeshroom/pseuds/sporeshroom
Summary: All The Knight has now is their words, and everything they've learned (relearned) since their return to Hallownest. They'd like to have a friend, too.
Relationships: Hornet & The Knight (Hollow Knight)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 82





	stranger (sibling)

_Are you my sister, then?_ The Knight signs to her. The left side of their shell is singed and steaming, and Hornet’s ears still ring from the swollen vengefly’s explosion.

“No,” she tells them. “You are a stranger to me.”

_I would think of you a sister_ , they say, and tuck away their nail, as if they weren't going to need it again for the rest of the day. _If you would think of me that way too._

Hornet turns away from the Temple of the Black Egg, and away from the ghost’s face. She does not run away from them, but only in the literal sense.

“I had one sibling, very briefly, and I had the weavers.” She brandishes her needle towards the floor. The Knight is reminded of what they came to the temple for, which is maybe the point. But this conversation is more important to them now.

They walk around her so she is facing them once again.

_I have—and have had— many, many siblings. For a long time._ They look up at her, Void eyes set behind their skull staring at the clean eyes painted onto her mask. _Most dead, some unhatched. One alive._ They point to the Black Egg.

_Maybe two_ , they continue. Their eyes don’t break contact with hers.

Their mind has been scraped clean, and in Hallownest— _in Hallownest again_ , they think— they have filled their brain with everything they could find.

Everything there was to read, they read, and anyone who would talk to them, they’d listen. They listened to Ogrim mumble in his sleep, and to every one of Zote’s precepts— twice. They listened to everything the Old Stag could remember about the stations, and to whatever the Grey Mourner could stand to say about her long dead lover.

_Ze’mer_ , they think her name was. All they had to go on were Ogrim's descriptions, and any mention of the Great Knights of Hallownest’s prime. There was so much they did not know, and so much they would die to find out. Had died to find out.

Every death at their siblings' hands, The Knight thinks was just. They do not know why the shades attack, but do not deny them their anger. Or maybe it is mindlessness that drives their nails. Either way, they lay no blame with the shades, for they had met their fathers corpse. He is not a bug they remember very much, but the Knight suspects they barely knew anything about him in their first life either.

The Wastes has scraped the memories from their mind, but it could not scrape the anger from their bones. They strike the empty corpse from his pathetic little throne.

When they reenter the room he is gone. The minor, minuscule catharsis they felt is empty in light of that. Was it even a trace of him they saw? Or just their own expectation that a castle would have a monarch, manifesting in an empty shell sitting on a shiny chair?

The Knight doesn’t feel embarrassed for their rage. They feel more rage, instead. Even in death the old wyrm had to keep some of his dignity. He couldn't afford them more than petty, token revenge. They couldn’t give a permanent answer or victory to the thousands of shades, shell-less in the Abyss.

**Where is he now? What became of the cruel old king?**

**_I don’t know._ **

And there was nothing more The Knight could do. Not for those siblings. They aren’t sure if this is good enough, or not. What do they know of siblings, anyways?

They remember climbing up on eye-socket foot holds, and shade-nails hacking their shell clean off their body. They know the cries of their littlest sibling, and that same sibling's mask. They know it dripping rain on stone in the City of Tears (as if the whole place was named for their mourning statue in the square). They know it tacky with Void on the opposite side of an arena, reflected in the hundreds or thousands of golden masks, visible wherever the Knight looks. They will know it, bleeding infection; the emptiest their sibling’s face has ever been.

But The Hollow Knight is not the Knight’s littlest sibling anymore. The youngest has been Hornet for a long time, and the littlest…The Knights thinks that maybe— probably—

They are the smallest sibling left alive. No wyrm-shell to feed on, out in the Wastes. No safe environment to moult. Things they couldn't grow without

Aside from themselves and the vessels what do they know? They know of the nailmasters and the sisters of battle.

The nailmasters who lived isolated in separate corners of the world. Mato, almost poised to leave the kingdom altogether, still waiting, desperate for someone to share his love and joys with. Sheo, who'd given all that up when he found out he wasn’t happy, finding new enjoyment and new purpose in his life through his art. Still alone. Oro, haunted and inhabiting the most dead part of the kingdom, demanding pay from doomed fools, and scrubbing the flaking corpse of a god from the windows of his hut every few days.

Bugs live lives, and not lessons; certainly not lessons for other bugs. They Knight knows this. Stories have morals, and a purpose for telling; life stories are different. Still, there is something to be learned— about life, or ambition, or sibling-hood— from those three. The Knight knows this too. But they also know that whatever that something is, it is not applicable here.

The sisters of battle on the other hand…They live united, without their brother. He had to strike down the White Lady, and they had to strike down his throne. So what? Could there only be unity and love between the Knight and their siblings while they had a common goal? More likely, the mantises weren’t a relevant example for their situation either.

So The Knight stands, a room away from their first living sibling (infected, yes, but _living_. The Hollow Knight had to still be alive, under their heavy, hulking shell). They stand, face to face with someone who knew their identity— or at least origins— before they did themself, but who would not call them a sibling.

_I have lost many siblings,_ they tell this warrior. _Once, just once, I would like to gain one._

Hornet sighs.

_If ever we meet again, I would like to imagine we would no longer be strangers._ The Knight tells her. The entrance to the Black Egg gapes, unsealed and pitch-black.

“‘If we meet’.” Hornet catches their words, and sees through to what they mean easily. “You won’t live through this?” They hadn’t tried very hard to hide it.

And so they sign; _You have killed me many, many times and I came back. But I imagine the Old Light hits much harder than you._ The Knight would smile at her reassuringly now, if they could. Yet another reason to curse their father for giving them no mouth (and no voice).

“If this is a ‘Goodbye World’, there were better recipients for it. Better bugs for you to spend your final moments with.” Hornet looks away, hand at the base of her mask. Her claws scratch the white paint there.

The Knight shoves their hands under her face and starts to sign. _I don’t intend to have any need for goodbyes._ Their sister stares. _So this is a ‘see you soon’, or ‘until next time’_ , They continue. _No need to worry about my final moments_.

She huffs out a small, incredulous laugh. “Fine then. Here,” She slips her mask up, just briefly, four eyes meeting their two. “We are strangers no longer. If this is your dying day, I can do that much. I…” She pulls her mask back down, and fiddles one-handed with the silk strings setting it into place. “I have lost many siblings too. You are correct, in that would be nice to gain one again.”

Her needle is still tight in her grip. They push it aside to wrap their short arms around her, and press their mask into her cloak. One claw comes down, surprisingly gentle, on their shoulder.

The Knight draws back, waves, and enters the unsealed inner temple.


End file.
